What happened in the U.S markets in the last week?
On Friday (October 10, 2014), the U.S stock markets were down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell by 0.69%, to 16,544.10; the S&P 500 (SPX) decreased by 1.15%, to 1,906.13; the Nasdaq Composite (COMP) fell by 2.34%, to 4,276.14.
On weekly basis, DJIA decreased by 465.59 points or 2.7%; S&P 500 decreased by 61.77 points or 3.1%; Nasdaq Composite fell by 199.38 points.
On the year-to-date basis, DJIA decreased by 0.20%, S&P 500 rose by 3.13%, and Nasdaq Composite increased by 2.39%.
Last week, U.S. investors focused on the following developments;
- Last week, U.S. markets had big fluctuations on daily basis.
- International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its new world economic report. In report, it has lowered the global economy growth forecast for 2014 and 2015, respectively 3.3% and 3.8%, showing the weaknesses in Euro-zone, Japan and emerging countries’ economies as reasons.
- Fed Minutes released this week from the Federal Reserve’s September 16-17 policy meeting has indicated some Fed members has been worried about the slowdown in global economy and negative effects of strong dollar on U.S. exports.
- Concerns on German economy increased due to the released data for the economic activity in August. German industrial production fell by 4% in August, factory orders decreased by 5.7%, and exports fell by 5.8%.
- Chinese services PMI index fell to 53.5 in September from 54.1 in August.
- US weekly initial jobless claims fell by 1.000 to 287.000, which is lower than the estimate of 293.000. The four-week moving average fell 7.250 to 287.750.
- Japan’s machinery orders rose 4.7% in August.
